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release."
Frey nodded eagerly, his eyes burning with sudden impatience to match wits and
strength with the enemy.
"Andvar, you can help us without raising your weapons against the Jotuns," I
said. "Give us back our swords, and lead us by the shortest route to the door of
Loki's prison. We ourselves will undertake to prevent the release of the evil one."
"If the Jotuns learned that we did even that, they would be enraged against us,"
Andvar mused. "But they cannot learn of it, unless you tell them. Swear that no
matter what befalls you, you will not tell of our part in this. Then we will guide you
to Loki's cave."
Frey raised his hand. "I swear it by the Norns, the fates who rule all, and by
Wyrd, their mother."
Though I repeated the oath, Andvar seemed only partly satisfied.
"It is a great risk we run. But Loki must not again go free to ravage Midgard with
war, death and destruction. We will give you back your swords and guide you,
Aesir. It rests upon you two alone to prevent the loosing of Loki."
The red torches bobbed as the Alfings turned fearfully to us.
"We are almost to the cavern-prison of Loki," said Andvar. "I fear to go farther."
The Alfing king's massive face was pale, the dread plain in his green eyes. Our
three other dwarfed guides were equally terrified.
"You promised to lead us to the door of the prison," I said. "Take us to where
we can see it. Then you can return."
Andvar shuddered and hesitantly advanced with his three subjects, though now
their steps were slow and reluctant. We were passing through a high, vaulted cavity
deep in the rock beneath Midgard. Andvar and the other Alfings had been leading
Frey and myself into the maze of natural cavities. Traveling always westward and
southward, I judged we were beneath the center of the rocky mainland.
Hours before, we had left the tunnels and work-caverns of Alfheim. These
gloomy spaces we now traversed showed no sign of their presence. The stunted
men so feared the very name of Loki that they never went near this labyrinth of
caves. It was too close to where Loki's body lay in suspended animation.
My brain was feverish with excitement, hope and despair, as Frey and I followed
our Alfing guides. I realized miserably that even if we were able to prevent the
Jotuns from setting their dread lord free, that would still leave Freya a prisoner in
dark and distant Jotunheim. A prisoner  or perhaps a tortured corpse by now...
At that thought, I clutched the hilt of my sword with wild passion. The Alfings
had given us back our weapons. Upon these two blades we must depend to
vanquish the Jotuns who would come with the rune key to release and awaken Loki.
It was a desperate course we had charted. But if Frey was right, upon our swords
rested the only hope of thwarting the release of the prisoned arch-devil.
Andvar led us into a narrow split in the rock. We squeezed through it in single
file, bruising our limbs. From this crevice, we emerged into a silent, tomb-like
gallery, piled with rocks in fantastic shapes.
"We go no farther!" quavered Andvar. Tremblingly he pointed toward the far end
of the great gallery. "There lies the door of Loki's prison!"
I peered between the masses of fallen rock that filled the gallery. Far away,
something like a web of shimmering radiance closed a gap in the rock wall.
"Aye, it is the door of the arch-traitor's prison," Frey whispered. "Well do I
remember when Odin placed it there, long centuries ago."
"The Jotuns haven't come yet with the key!" I breathed eagerly. "We're in time!"
"Now we leave you, for we will not go nearer Loki," Andvar muttered fearfully.
He handed us one of the torches. "If you succeed in preventing Loki's release, you
will rescue our friend, the lady Freya?"
The dwarf king's anxiety softened me.
"Be sure we will, Andvar," I promised. "Somehow we'll get her out of
Jotunheim."
"She has always been kind to us, as her mother and mother's mother were before
her," Andvar declared. "You are lucky to have won her love, stranger."
"I know," I said humbly.
"Hasten, Andvar!" called the other Alfings softly. "The Jotuns may come at any
moment."
Andvar heeded their anxious warning, and hurried through the crevice by which
we had just come. The thump of their heavy tread died away.
"Can the Jotuns get to Loki's prison without going through Alfheim as we did?" I
asked Frey.
"Yes. There are many ways from the surface into these caves, Jarl Keith. The
Jotuns will come by one of them."
Holding the torch high, I advanced with Frey through the lofty cavern. A
profound silence made the guttering of the torch, even my own breathing, seem loud
to my ears.
My heart was pounding as we approached the shimmering door at the end of the
cavern. Now I saw that the door was not of matter at all, but of force, that
apparently their web of light was probably less vulnerable than any material door
could be. It was projected from apertures on either side of the opening. I guessed
that hidden inside the rock must be the mechanisms that projected the force. Frey
confirmed my guess.
"Odin himself devised the projectors and sunk them in the rock. They are [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]